Fibra Uno is awaiting approval of the nation’s antitrust commission, known as Cofeco, to finalize the purchases, Rubina told reporters in New York today. The five portfolios include 20 campuses of a university, office buildings, 13 retail properties, seven plots of land and three shopping malls in Mexico City, he said.
“The more we grow, the more difficult it will be to find interesting portfolios to invest in,” said Robina. “We are really taking the opportunities we find.”
Fibra Uno, the first to test Mexico’s tax-advantaged REIT structure, is benefiting from acquisitions that boosted net operating income by 61 percent in the third quarter and turned the company into the world’s biggest diversified property trust, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The company plans to tap bond markets by the end of the first half of 2015, according to Jorge Pigeon, the head of investor relations at Fibra Uno. He said the company will need to refinance about $1 billion in peso and dollar debt coming due over the next three years, and will also return to equity markets.
“The expectation is to deploy the capital that we still have sitting on the balance sheet in the next six months,” Pigeon said. “The only way you can grow to $4 billion a year is with a combination of debt and equity.”
Debt Issuance
The company will issue debt in short and long maturities, and is considering sales in both peso and dollar markets, he said. Fibra Uno isn’t currently considering a bond sale in other currencies, he said.
Fibra Uno is also poised to get a boost from changes to the nation’s oil laws that will allow foreign producers to drill in Mexico for the first time in 76 years, said Robina. President Enrique Pena Nieto has said that ending the nation’s oil monopoly will bring an extra $250 billion in foreign investment and help lift annual growth close to 5 percent by the end of his term in 2018.
Robina said an oil company he didn’t identify has already agreed to lease 2,000 square meters of office space. Fibra Uno anticipates that number to grow to 20,000 square meters within the next three years, he said.
“We are already feeling the demand that is coming,” Robina said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Katia Porzecanski in New York at [email protected]; Michelle F. Davis in New York at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Walsh at [email protected] Rita Nazareth, Lester Pimentel
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